


All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

by Schemilix



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-11 06:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/475634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schemilix/pseuds/Schemilix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I do not fear death but I was not ready to die, then. I was unfinished. I could not go to the gods or Hell without seeing you avenged."</p><p>What grief could drive a man to take the Brand of the Ram?</p>
            </blockquote>





	All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

In some ways I have been blessed, in others cursed. Yours is the coin given to me most willingly, and I see both faces at once for it. I have never needed or wanted women as that, I have scorned them and broken hearts for you. Perhaps they see in me our family's green eyes before all of my flaws, or perhaps they fancy practising the woman's art of fixing a man, but they cannot do that, and I will not let them.

It is easier to focus, undistracted. There can be no comparison between tawdry romance and the love born of knowing someone since the day you were born. You have known me all your life; I, yours. No woman I meet in battle can understand as deeply, remove my worries so unconditionally and calmly. Bards rarely spin tales of the love between family, as it is too reliable and kind. It is not a fierce love, and the heart does not beat faster as with some pernicious drug.

At first I felt supplanted by this girl, and when I leaned to feel if this thing mewling in her cradle was flesh and blood - you held my finger with a hand pale as milk, and looked at me with eyes that already seemed to know, and reproach gently.

I was unable to hold you. You were bird-like, too fragile, ungainly with your head the size of the rest of you, supported on a neck thin as silk rope. I guarded you fiercely until one day you routed me with a stick in the garden, knocking me down. You told me should I spend so long watching your back, I would leave mine unguarded. Since then we have stood back to back while swords clashed; we have been two pairs of eyes and two swords.

When our parents died, taken as birds in one blow - I tried to play the older brother. I came to you with the intent of taking your sorrow into me, as is my right, and found myself silent in your arms as you told me everything would be alright. You reminded me then that there is more to the world beyond the currency of misery. Still I tried to be there for you, when I often felt absent from myself.

I offered you sanctuary from the coming storm and you refused, telling me I was yours. It was a white lie because you cannot put a temple within itself. Perhaps your solace was that in some ways, you could always help someone - with a smile, an offered hand, a sharing of bread stolen that we may live to ensure no moppet need steal bread to live again.

I was shackled to you and came to learn the beauty of chains, because I lacked substance beyond my goal, I lacked anything but fervour and the hot air of vows; I would have drifted away but your allegiance tethered me, and I was held uneasily grounded.

They set a brazier to the root of the chains. They grew burning hot and their solace lost, held down, I felt the heat of revenge, it maddened me bull-like. There was no goal but the ending of pain, and my eyes were, I tell you this, blinded by tears. I saw only the face of the boy who dared tell me what was honourable and what was not, when he had slain my men and my women for asking to be treated as such. 

I lived only that you saw justice, else I would have drifted away and used the knife to claim myself again, I am sure of it. I overlooked injustice in my own corps as nothing could touch the tumour of hate that had grown, it has pushed all of my organs aside and sat, twisted and gluttonous and still growing.

I disappeared. I became a faceless man. And then they found me. 

Never fond of the Church was I, they who have sown the seed of our servitude, and use the false mouth of the gods to ensure we remain always under the boot of the aristocracy. And yet, that power they used, they offered me. I need only sell my sword. That was what I told myself, as I reluctantly took the gold armour, the red raiments. This I will say - I did not feel any more powerful. I did not feel strong. 

And when the boy came I struck with anger and did not think, the blindness came and with it the sword that wielded the same arts as I - the girl-woman's holy blade pierced me and I saw in her dark eyes pity. I saw there grief for what I was, the gentle and heartfelt reproach, I saw you there, and the nostalgia cut me deeper still even as my lifeblood drained.

Say anything of me but speak well of the Folles fortitude. I did not want to die in this holy crypt, this thrice-damned monastery - that was not the place for me. I belonged dead under the stars, as my sister had, and buried the same. In the end I dragged my broken body just to see that I could, just to cling to life and pain for a moment more before the numb cold of death. I do not fear death but I was not ready to die, then. I was unfinished. I could not go to the gods or Hell without seeing you avenged.

So Hell comes for me. These stones we have been guarding are not trinkets, would you have seen that?

The Ram reaches into the depths of my despair and pulls forth all in me that desires still like looped intestines, the core of it. Bloodshed, violence, the vindication of hate. For a moment I think what I desire most is to venge you, and my mind asks for it. My heart, though, asks only to end my grief, to cut away these chains and this tumour you have made of me. I long not to be whole again for even gods cannot do that now - I long to be empty and without pain, I long for the release of death though my life's end has not been met.

The Ram takes that grief. As my flesh changes I feel the agony of you bleed away, replaced with the familiar pain of skin and bone sundering. And you, I know you will never come back. The bloodlust is sweet and metallic. All I was ever good for is killing, and now I not only live by the blade but I am it. My heart beats with the fierce tides of war, with Aries, the cruel master heralding the end. I welcome him. I become him. All else whispers away.

Milleuda. I am sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> I immediately fell in love with Wiegraf's character, I have to admit. From the moment we see him cut Gustav down for perverting their goals to when he tells Ramza that all he cares about now is killing - the slow loss of his humanity to despair really touched me, and he's definitely the best FF antagonist for me. This started off as musings and I just let it develop into a full account, a lonely man speaking to a ghost as he sells his soul to end his grief.
> 
> I also wanted to explore the importance of familial bonds. People often overlook sisterly/brotherly love in favour of romance and so on. As an only child I hope I portrayed it decently.


End file.
